Brixia

This is a fanstatic, insanely quotable, deliciously fun movie that boasts a good script, great acting, and John Barry's marvelous score. Much praise has been given to acting giants O'Toole and Hepburn as Henry and Eleanor, but far better and more subtle are Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, and Nigel Terry as their sons. Their first and last scenes characterize them perfectly, from the way Geoffrey directs his forces in the beginning to the way Richard tosses his dagger near the end.

Hopkins gives his Richard the Lionhearted a combination of regal bearing, chivalric bravado, agression, and sulking that makes you believe him when he says "I am a constant soldier, a sometime poet, and I will be king." His scenes with mother Eleanor and the French King are particularly good.

John Castle's performance as Geoffrey is probably the most impressive. His character, who dies in a joust just 3 years after the movie's events, doesn't have the familiarity or baggage that the roles of Richard and the future King John have (both made famous through the Robin Hood legends), and thus has to be built from scratch. Castle's Geoffrey truly enjoys scheming, and the fun he has helps to set the movie's tone, where the ins and outs of plotting are very much ends in themselves.

The hapless and repulsive John provides a few laughs and some surprisingly funny lines, although not enough reason is given for his being Henry's favorite.

It is also worh watching the minor character William Marshall, who was the greatest knight of his age and who has a few scenes here as Henry's right hand man.

This is one of my favorite films. It is of perfect length and pacing, and the script is one of the best ever written. The acting, direction, and design of this movie are uniformly excellent. The segue into Henry VIII's entrance is alone reason for seeing the movie. The production design is top-notch, both beautiful and--unlike many "costume dramas"--not so overwhelming as to lose the actors among outrageous sets and costumes. For an adaptation of a stage play, a remarkable proportion of the action taking place outdoors, with More's house at Chelsea being particularly lovely.

It's very easy to see this film superficially as a moral fable, and many people scoff at it as being a stagy morality play. But it's both more subtle and more vibrant that that. The subtlety of Robert Bolt's script lies in its exploration of identity. We're not meant to identify or admire More's religious ideas, which the movie actually tiptoes around. Instead it's what Bolt called More's "adamantine sense of his own self" that the movie really highlights.